TheGameCreators Forum Closing - The End of an Era

[kevin]

TheGameCreators Forum Closing - The End of an Era

For nearly 25 years, The Game Creators (TGC) forums have been a cornerstone of indie game development, housing an incredible archive of knowledge, creativity, and shared passion. Spanning classic tools like Dark BASIC, Dark BASIC Pro, FPS Creator, and The 3D Game Maker through to App Game Kit, these forums were more than just a support hub—they were a thriving community where developers learned, collaborated, and pushed the boundaries of what was possible. 

Now, that era is coming to an end. TGC has announced that their forums will no longer be active, encouraging users to transition to Discord instead. While an archive may be preserved, access has already been difficult for years, with slow load times and frequent timeouts discouraging participation. Many longtime members, including Richard Davey—the original developer of the forum software—have struggled to even post a final farewell. 

The forums weren't just about technical support; they were a place where ideas evolved, projects grew, and programmers of all skill levels found inspiration. Countless threads documented experimental game mechanics, problem-solving discussions, and groundbreaking techniques—knowledge that is now at risk of being buried forever. 

With the closure looming, we're left reminiscing about the golden days of the forum: the excitement of seeing new projects emerge, the cycle of experimentation and improvement, and the camaraderie of a passionate coding community. While modern development has moved toward different platforms, something unique is being lost—a shared history of game development that spanned generations. 

As we say goodbye to this chapter, we can only hope the archives remain accessible so that future developers can look back and learn from the past. 

Dark BASIC Videos Seen In this video:

The videos were projects of my dating back early days of DarkBASIC and DarkBASICpro days

DarkBASIC Sliding Collision Test 2000/2001
https://youtu.be/9cqZQGH9Grs

The Lab  - Windows DarkBASIC PRO DEMO:  (19-feb-2003)
https://youtu.be/2FXrG3wor-0




The Creator Forums contains nearly 25 years of indie game development conversations.  Ranging from their classic development languages for indie game coders such as Dark BASIC and Dark BASIC Professional (dbpro ) through to modern range of App Game Kit (AGK,AGK2,AGKS development tools.  Not only that there's the range of game creation tools from 3D Game Maker,  Fps Creator through to Game GURU.

#gameguru #agks #darkbasic #dbpro #agk #fpscreator #BASIC #gamedev #indiedev

[kevin]

Just putting it out there that I've built my own a partial backup & viewer (in php) a few weeks back. Was originally trying to locate stuff hidden deep away in the boards. Just adding a basic search to the threads alone makes the world of difference. Adding some controls makes it so much easier.. but anyway

Was building a local global search from post data seems pretty straight forward. Just going to build an inverted lookup (words mapping to message id's). The current parser imports and decodes posts and attempts to convert them back the boards original markup. So viewing it can be displayed in a simpler theme. Got a few ideas for that..




TheGameCreators - Forum Banner Animation

Get Source Code

[matty47]

You are right. The forums were a wonderful resource. I hope that you are able to archive them. It would sem that home user programming is waning.

[kevin]

Building Local Forum Search - The Game Creators  - TGC Forum Archive

*Preserving DarkBASIC & AppGameKit Forum Archives* 

With the shutdown of the *DarkBASIC*, *The Game Creators*, and *AppGameKit* forums, preserving decades of *game development* knowledge has become a priority. This project builds a *local web-based archive* using *PHP* and a *local server* (e.g., Laragon) to store captured forum threads and discussions. 

*How It Works* 

  --  Users can browse captured forum data, identifying which DarkBASIC Classic and DarkBASIC Professional threads are locally saved. 
  --  A search system indexes thread titles and post content*, allowing queries for *keywords like "sprite collision" or "AI programming." 
  --  Threads are ranked based on *post count and keyword relevance**, with results sorted from *most recent to oldest. 
  --  A JSON-based database stores messages, preserving *user posts, message IDs, and forum structures. 


*Key Features* 
✔ Local Archive of DarkBASIC & AppGameKit Forums
✔ Search by Thread Title, Content, or User Contributions 
✔ Keyword-Based Ranking for Game Development Topics
✔ Standalone Storage – No External Dependencies 
✔ Optimized for PHP Memory Limits & Performance

This tool ensures that critical *game programming discussions**, tutorials, and community knowledge from *DarkBASIC, Dark BASIC pro, FpsCreator, PlayBASIC, and AppGameKit forums remain accessible, even after the forums shut down. 



Things Mentioned In This Video 

The Game Creators
https://thegamecreators.com

Laragon (Easily run a local server on your machine)
https://laragon.org/

PHP programming language
https://www.php.net/

Codelite
https://codelite.org/

[kevin]

You are right. The forums were a wonderful resource. I hope that you are able to archive them. It would sem that home user programming is waning.

 Yeah..  There's various on going attempts to archive the boards, so they can do that.  There's been a small victory though as The Game Creators will now keep them online in a read only form (No attachments)  That's nice and all but the writing is well and truly on the wall.

would sem that home user programming is waning

  yeah..  more than likely ;(

[kevin]

is this the end of the road for The Game Creators ?? 

https://thegamecreators.com

https://appgamekit.com/

and even https://www.game-guru.com/ are all down


(I doubt it :)  - Back online Today


Alternate Forums for TheGameCreators products  (AppGameKit , DarkBASIC ect)
https://purpletoken.com/forum/